This invention is directed to a process and apparatus for the preparation of cyanuric chloride by trimerizing cyanogen chloride in the presence of chlorine. A known process for the preparation of cyanuric chloride is described in Netherlands Pat. application No. 7101929. Generally, the starting mixture of cyanogen chloride and chlorine is prepared by having an excess quantity of chlorine react with hydrogen cyanide. Methods for preparing such starting mixtures are described in Netherlands Pat. application No. 6900350. This process however, suffers from the drawback that the mixture of cyanogen chloride and chlorine also contains hydrogen chloride, which can only be removed from the mixture with great difficulty. Moreover, hydrogen chloride is an undesirable by-product.
Methods are also known whereby cyanogen chloride may be prepared electro-chemically from halide ion and hydrogen cyanide as shown by U.S. Pat. No. 3,105,023. However, the cyanogen chloride produced according to this known process cannot be used for trimerization into cyanuric chloride without further refinement. The cyanogen chloride obtained according to the process of U.S. Pat. No. 3,105,023 contains contaminants which cannot be removed without great difficulty. Such contaminants would accumulate in a reaction mixture flow circulating over the trimerization reactor. This would result in a strong reduction of the reaction volume available in the trimerization reactor as well as a possible poisoning of the trimerization catalyst and probably necessitating the application of a large discharge out of the circulating flow, the latter being attended, of course, by serious losses of valuable products.
Accordingly, it is the primary object of the present invention to eliminate the drawbacks associated with such prior art processes.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a continuous process for the production of cyanuric chloride.